The French environment and transport minister, Ségolène Royal, said that the crew of the Airbus A320 had stopped responding on radio at 10.30am yesterday when the aircraft was over the Mediterranean.

The aircraft slammed into the sheer side of a mountain in the French Alps soon after 10.48am. For those 18 minutes, it gradually shed height from 28,000 feet to less than 2,000 feet without transmitting any form of distress signal.